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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Featured Yayoi Kusama

Infinity Net, The Autobiography Of Yayoi Kusama

HardcoverSOLD!

In 1957, encouraged by Georgia O’Keeffe, artist
Yayoi Kusama left Japan for New York City to become a star. By the time
she returned to her home country in 1973, she had established herself as
a leader of New York’s avant-garde movement, known for creating
happenings and public orgies to protest the Vietnam War and for the
polka dots that had become a trademark of her work. Her sculptures,
videos, paintings, and installations are to this day included in major
international exhibitions.

Available for the first time in English, Infinity Net
paints a multilayered portrait of this fascinating artist. Taking us
from her oppressive childhood in postwar Japan to her present life in
the psychiatric hospital where she voluntarily stays—and is still
productive—Kusama’s autobiography offers insight into the persona of
mental illness that has informed her work. While she vibrantly describes
the hallucinatory episodes she experiences, her tale is punctuated by
stories of her pluck and drive in making her artistic voice heard.
Conveying the breadth and ambition of her own work, Kusama also offers a
dazzling snapshot of 1960s and 1970s New York City and her encounters
with its artists—she collaborates with Andy Warhol, shares an apartment
with Donald Judd, and becomes romantically entangled with Joseph
Cornell. Replete with the sense of the sheer necessity within an artist
to create, Infinity Net is an energetic and juicy page-turner that offers a glimpse into Kusama’s exhilarating world.